


Connections

by Flynne



Series: Garviel Shepard [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Garviel Shepard, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 15:25:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14673948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flynne/pseuds/Flynne
Summary: Maybe it should have been obvious. Maybe Garv should have recognized the almost unnatural flatness to the sand-scoured ground, the level basin surrounded by dunes and jagged rocky hills. Maybe he should have realized that the uneasiness curdling in his gut had less to do with the lonely distress beacon and wreckage visible through the blowing dust, and more to do with the inexplicable but chilling familiarity of the landscape……but he hadn’t.





	Connections

Maybe it should have been obvious.

Maybe Garv should have recognized the almost unnatural flatness to the sand-scoured ground, the level basin surrounded by dunes and jagged rocky hills. Maybe he should have realized that the uneasiness curdling in his gut had less to do with the lonely distress beacon and wreckage visible through the blowing dust, and more to do with the inexplicable but chilling familiarity of the landscape…

…but he hadn’t.

The wind buffeted Garv and Kaidan as they advanced toward the wrecked Grizzly, making them stagger despite the grounding weight of their armor.

“Where did that beacon come from anyway?” Garv asked.

Kaidan tilted his head, sounding tinny and scratched through the comms as he asked, “What do you mean?” Garv could imagine the quizzical expression on his lieutenant’s face even though he couldn’t see it.

“Well, there’s the Grizzly,” Garv answered, “but who put the beacon there in the first place? There’s no one here.”

“Scanners aren’t picking up any life signs in the area. Something’s not right about this,” Garrus put in, listening in from his place back in the Mako.

Kaidan stiffened as he caught sight of something up ahead, then quickened his steps. “We’ve got bodies.” Garv followed Kaidan’s line of sight, noticing for the first time the wasted figures half-buried in the blowing sand around the crushed Grizzly. He picked up his pace to stay near his squadmate, even though his growing sense of unease was telling him to fall back. His hand began to drift toward his shotgun.

He felt the first subtle ground tremor through his boots at the same moment Garrus’ voice shattered the silence. “Shepard! Alenko! Get out of there!”

And then everything clicked. He froze, skidding to a halt as memories flashed across his mind, chest locking tight and stopping his breath.  _Rocky ground shattering skyward, a bestial roar drowning out the sound of gunfire and the screams of dying men, terror and the breath burning in his lungs, Tarik’s voice behind him - “Garvi, RUN!” - and the world breaking apart into chaos and darkness -_

“Run,” he gasped.  

Kaidan looked round at him sharply. “Commander?”

 _“Run!”_  He broke free of his momentary paralysis, lunging forward to clamp his hand around Kaidan’s arm. He wrenched the other man around, hauling him along as he began sprinting back toward the Mako.

The ground shuddered again - but this time it didn’t stop, and with a sound like a mountain shattering, the thresher maw exploded up from beneath the shifting sand. The tentacled head reared back like a striking snake. Garv gave Kaidan a shove, sending him stumbling to the side while he flung himself in the opposite direction.  A gout of sickly green acid scorched the sand between them. “Keep moving!” he barked. “Don’t let it track you!”

The thresher maw bellowed, diving beneath the surface only to emerge even closer, near enough to pelt Garv's armor with broken rock. He brought his shotgun to bear as he ran, knowing that it was too little, too late -

The roar of the Mako’s cannon shattered through the air, and a blinding burst of light tore into the creature’s side. The thresher maw shrieked and tossed its head, sending its acid jet arcing into the air instead of engulfing Garv where he stood. Black blood fell like rain, streaking his armor as he turned and ran. The Mako’s guns fell silent. Garv pictured Garrus scrambling from the gunnery station back to the wheel. He’d have to get the tank moving, which meant Garv and Kaidan were on their own, but the hit had bought them enough time to get away.

Once more, the thresher maw burst out of the ground, spitting wildly in the direction of the speeding Mako. The tank’s shields sparked and shivered at the direct hit, and it lurched to a halt, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel. The air rippled electric blue as Kaidan unleashed a biotic wave. The giant predator was too large and too deep in the earth to actually be hurled aside, but Kaidan’s throw snapped the giant head back at the same moment Garrus reached the cannon.

The Mako’s shell tore into the thresher maw’s throat.  The creature let out a horrible gurgling shriek, and chunks of burning flesh thudded to the ground. Garv took aim and fired at the gaping mouth, hearing the crack of gunfire from Kaidan. Garrus opened fire with the Mako’s guns, close enough so Garv felt the rattling in his bones. The thresher maw loomed even higher, drawing back to strike. His shotgun bucked in his arms as he fired again and again, pushing dangerously close to the limits of the heat sink. The monster roared in disoriented rage and vomited a torrent of acid. Smoking droplets hissed against his armor. A growl of pain escaped through his clenched teeth as the thinner plate over the back of his hand sizzled away, but the worst of the spray went wide, boiling against the rocky ground. He tightened his hold on his shotgun and kept firing.

The maw thrashed as Garrus fired the cannon again, its movements becoming frenzied as the explosive shell shredded the side of its head.

“Shepard, look out!”  The comm squealed in protest at Kaidan’s frantic shout - and the next moment a shimmering blue wave struck him in the chest, hurling him back as the thresher maw’s bleeding, frothing head crashed down with earth-shaking force, pounding a jagged crater into the ground where he’d been standing.  

Garv tumbled to a halt on the rocky ground and scrambled to right himself. It took three tries to climb to his hands and knees, muscles twitching with the sharp static prickle of the biotic throw that had flung him out of the way. His hand still clutched his shotgun in a desperate grip, but the thresher maw remained where it had fallen, body steaming as the fierce wind snatched away its dissipating heat.

“I think we got it,” Kaidan said, sounding dazed.

“Don’t get close to it,” Garv said sharply. His throat felt tight and dry, and the words rasped as he forced them out. He made another failed attempt to stand before falling back resignedly to sit on the ground, swallowing hard before trying to speak again. “Everyone okay?”

“We should be asking you that,” Garrus said. Garv looked up to see the former C-sec detective climbing out of the Mako. Kaidan was running, already halfway over to him, but Garrus was faster, and both of them reached him at the same time.

“Are you all right, sir?” Kaidan asked, dropping to one knee in front of him.

“I’m fine,” he said, but another tremor rippled through him, making his voice waver.

“You don’t sound fine,” Garrus said. He picked up Garv's shotgun, brushing sand and grit from the barrel.

Garv's fists clenched. His acid-burned hand flared with pain, making him grimace, but his helmet hid the expression and neither of his squad members saw it. “It’s okay,” he said. “Just an aftereffect of getting hit with a mass effect field. It’s going away.”

Kaidan’s wince  _was_ visible. “Sorry about that, Commander. I didn’t see any other options.”

“You did fine, Alenko. I can walk this off. Getting stuck under _that…_ ” he gestured at the dead maw, mostly succeeding in keeping his hand steady. “…not so much.” Neither Kaidan nor Garrus said anything right away. Their faces were obscured by their helmets but even so he could feel the scrutiny as they looked at him. His heart thumped heavily and his chest grew tight. The specter of Akuze rose around him like a choking fog. He knew neither of them would dare to broach the subject - unlike most of the people who had recognized him since he’d arrived on the Citadel - but he could feel their guarded observation as they waited to see what he’d do. For a moment,  _Garv_ wasn’t sure what he was going to do. It didn’t matter that the thresher maw was destroyed; its menacing bulk loomed at the edge of his vision, sinister even in death, and he found that he half expected it to rise screeching from the ground and burn them all where they stood. If he wanted to maintain any sense of command over the situation he knew he’d have to get out of there.

It took every bit of willpower he had, but when he spoke, his voice was emotionless and steady. “We need to check that beacon.”

Kaidan took his outstretched hand to help him up, but in the end it was Garrus who wound up supporting him. Kaidan was shorter and slighter than Garv, and despite Garrus’ wiry build, his height and strength let him carry the commander’s heavily-armored, stumbling weight while Kaidan moved cautiously ahead to examine the beacon.

Garrus glanced around at the empty desert. “There’s nothing here,” he said grimly. “Someone put that beacon here to lure the marines right into the middle of the nest.”

Kaidan shook his head in disbelief. “Who would do that? I mean - this beacon is one of ours.”

“We don’t have time to figure that out now,” Garv said. The biotics-induced pins and needles in his legs finally faded enough so he could stand on his own, and he let go of Garrus, bending to carefully turn one of the bodies at his feet. His mouth tightened in a grim line. “These are Kahoku’s men.” He carefully removed the set of acid-scarred dogtags from around the marine’s neck, then moved on to the next. Garrus moved to help while Kaidan wrenched the beacon’s access panel open with more force than necessary and fried the mechanism with a burst from his omnitool.

Garrus brought the dogtags he’d gathered to Garv and draped the chains across his palm with the others. Garv closed his fist around them, then turned without a word and headed for the waiting Mako.

—–----------------------

Tali was right. The  _Normandy_ was a quiet ship. Alone in his quarters, if he shut his eyes, Garv could almost forget he was on board a vessel at all. But after a moment, he blinked away the burn of exhaustion and sat up straighter on the edge of his bed. The glimmer of light on metal drew his eyes to the pile of dogtags on his desk, faintly illuminated by the low light he’d left on.

Perhaps bringing them to his quarters had been a mistake. He’d left them there for safekeeping upon returning to the _Normandy_ , not wanting to risk them getting misplaced. His armor had been taken to the maintenance bay for cleaning and he had been taken to the med bay for maintenance. Once Chakwas had treated his hand and determined that he suffered no lasting effects from being thrown by Kaidan, she’d released him with orders to get some rest.  

Garv had agreed to do so, but he knew it had been an empty promise. The nightmares hadn’t stopped, but over the years, they’d become less frequent. Now, though, he could feel the memories looming at the back of his mind, towering over him like a great wave ready to crash down the moment he fell asleep.

He took an unsteady breath and pushed himself to his feet, crossing over to the desk before he could change his mind. He avoided touching the tags when he sat down. He knew he could put them in a drawer, but somehow that seemed disrespectful. So he turned his chair to angle himself away from them, punching up the comm and typing in a contact number he knew as well as his own.

There was no answer. Just a bland, detached recording informing him that the party he had attempted to contact was unavailable.

Garv hadn’t really expected to get through, but it didn’t ease the throb of loneliness. He hesitated for a moment, then hit the option to leave a message. “Hey, Akil. It’s me. I guess you’re off doing some top secret N7 thing. Or reading the dictionary again.” He couldn’t quite smile, but his tone automatically softened with teasing affection as he spoke. “I, uh. Just thought I’d call, ‘cause…” His throat tightened, cutting off his words, and it was a moment before he could speak again. “You’re not gonna believe this, but I, uh…I fought a thresher maw. On foot.” A strained laugh escaped his chest, and he scrubbed his non-bandaged hand through his hair. “Was planetside checking something out, and the thing just came busting up out of the ground…” The words lodged in his throat again, but he swallowed hard and kept going, speaking steadily even if his voice sounded thick and foreign to his ears. “Anyway, that’s why I called. Don’t stay up too late, and if you think you’ve packed enough juice boxes, bring one extra. You burn through those things like a krogan through ryncol. Guess I’ll talk to you later.” He disconnected the call, the fond expression on his face fading into weariness.

He set his omnitool to notify him when it received a reply, then just sat for a moment or two, staring vacantly at his neatly-made bed. The earlier adrenaline rush from combat had utterly drained away, and there was only hollow exhaustion in the vacuum it left behind. Even so, Garv knew sleep wouldn’t bring him any relief, and he rose and walked silently from the room.

Illumination on the _Normandy_ was the same no matter what the time, but the night cycle always seemed darker somehow. It was quieter, at any rate. The second deck was deserted, and only one or two yawning crewmembers at the CIC took notice of him when he emerged from the stairwell, hastily snapping to attention as he passed by.

Garv acknowledged their salutes, but didn’t linger. He paced silently down the raised walkway between the twin banks of computer stations - all but the two closest to the CIC dark and empty now - and made his way to the cockpit.

Pressley looked up as he approached, rising from the starboard station where he’d been seated. Even when Joker was off duty, no one dared to sit in his chair. “Commander.”

Garv nodded in response. “How’s she sailing?”

“Everything’s fine, sir,” came the immediate reply.  “Is there something I can do for you?”

He didn’t answer right away, staring past his XO at the stars outside the window. “Why don’t you take off early tonight? I’ll take the rest of the shift.”

Pressley’s brows lifted. “Sir?”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten how to keep a starship on course,” Garv said with a lopsided smile, showing signs of humor he didn’t really feel. “Wasn’t that long ago that I was XO and took turns with everyone else.”

The navigator’s gaze was uncertain, making Garv wonder if bringing up his recent and abrupt promotion had been wise, but he didn’t question him again. “Very good, sir. Thank you. It’s been a long day.” He saluted and retreated down the walkway, heading for the elevator.

Garv settled into the chair Pressley had vacated, letting his head fall back against the seat as a weary sigh drained out of his chest. He knew it could be days before Akil got his message and even longer before he was able to respond. It wasn’t unusual for weeks - sometimes months - to pass without speaking to each other. N7 assignments were usually covert and didn’t have definite end points. It had been six years since Akuze; not all that long in the grand scheme of things, but long enough for the worst of the trauma to fade. But he would have given anything to hear his brother's voice. The mass effect field surrounding the ship glimmered like blue gossamer over the stars, and he stared at it unblinking, willing the softly shifting waves calm his turbulent thoughts.

It didn’t help. Killing the thresher maw down on Edolus had ripped down the veil that time had drawn over his memories, and the sound of its roar joined with the furious bellowing that had echoed in his head for weeks after the attack. He remembered the screams, the rattle of gunfire that did nothing to daunt the raging predators slaughtering his team. Tarik had slammed into him from behind with bone-jarring force, using his larger body to bear them both to the ground as he shielded Garv from the worst of the maw’s acid spray.

The old nightmare darkened his mind, no less intense now even though he was awake, and closing his eyes didn’t block it out  _\- stumbling over uneven ground under Tarik’s weight as smoking ropes of acid hiss through his armor to sear the flesh beneath. Falling hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs as the earth ruptures again, closing his ears to the screams of the men behind him as they are dragged under. He shouldn’t have been able to run fast enough to clear the nest, not wounded with his dying friend on his back, but he does - and when the maw lunges for him again, it misses, but it slams to the earth with the force of a crashing freight train, and the brittle stone cliff face before them comes crashing down -_

“Commander?”

Garv twitched, startled, half-turning in his chair to see Ashley standing in the cockpit entrance. He hadn’t heard her approach. “Williams. What do you need?”

Her shoulders were straight, hands clasped behind her back, but her brow was puckered slightly as she looked at him. “Are you okay, sir?”

He glanced down, following her gaze, noticing for the first time that his arm was curled around his torso, clutching his side. The corrugated scars from the thresher maw’s acid rippled beneath his fingers through the fabric of his fatigues. He let go, mouth twisting in a sheepish, self-deprecating smile. “I’m fine. Thanks.” He tilted his head. “Was there anything else?”

Williams wasn’t the type of person to fidget, but she shifted her weight slightly and hesitated briefly before saying, “I was just checking in with you, sir.”

 _Checking in?_ Garv gave her an encouraging look, waving her in.  “At ease, Chief. What’s on your mind?”

Her posture relaxed a bit, and she came forward to lean against the wall next to his chair. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. After what happened earlier.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets, definitely fidgeting now. “You can tell me if it’s none of my business, but…it helped, what you said after Eden Prime. I know it’s not the same, but if you want to talk to someone about it, I’ll listen.”

Garv's brows lifted slightly, surprised at the offer. Finding Williams alone on Eden Prime after the rest of her unit had been killed had made him feel a sympathetic link with his fellow marine. Apparently, she felt the same way. Garv generally got along with his fellow soldiers, and was friendly with those under his command, but he couldn’t say that he’d ever really connected with any of them. Subordinates on previous crews wouldn’t have offered to lend a listening ear.

In the face of his silence, Williams shrugged, averting her eyes. “Anyway, I just thought I’d offer,” she said. “Sorry, Commander. I’ll get out of your hair.”

“No, wait - it’s okay,” Garv said, speaking hurriedly before she could turn to go. “I don’t, uh…I don’t usually talk about stuff like this with my crew, is all. I was just surprised. But I don’t mind.”

Williams tilted her head. “Who do you talk to, then?”

One side of Garv's mouth lifted in a fond smile. “My brother.”

“Oh.”

Garv saw the flicker of recognition in Williams’ eyes. His adoption by Hannah Shepard shortly after the massacre at Akuze had become widespread knowledge almost instantly once his name - his  _new_ name - had been released and the details of the attack had been made public. The media had been so manically delighted to report that the famous survivor of Akuze was the adopted brother of Akil Shepard, Hero of Elysium, that they’d barely questioned why a ship’s XO would adopt a 23-year-old soldier, the same age as her grown son.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?” Williams asked.

“Right after I was assigned to the _Normandy_. Three weeks before we left for Eden Prime.”

Williams caught the wistful tone in his voice, and she gave him a sympathetic look. “It’s tough being apart from siblings.”

“Speaking from experience?”

She smiled. “Yeah. I have three sisters. We’re pretty close. We write and call whenever we can, but it’s not the same as actually being together.”

Garv was silent for a short while, letting his gaze drift back to the stars outside the window. He absently flexed the fingers on his bandaged hand. The wound had been treated quickly enough that Chakwas had told him the scarring would be minimal, and medigel had temporarily numbed the burn, but he could still feel where the painful streaks had been around his arm. His side itched - even though the burns he’d received at Akuze were long-healed, the nerve endings damaged and desensitized to touch, he seemed to feel ghostly prickles from the old wounds. “Akil was there when I woke up,” he said, the quiet words escaping before he realized he’d spoken. “In the hospital. After they found me.” Williams didn’t say anything, but Garv could tell she was listening. “It was before his mom adopted me, but he was my emergency contact so…they called him.”

“I take it you couldn’t reach him tonight?” Williams ventured after a moment.

A wistful huff of air that was almost a laugh escaped his chest. “No.  But that’s not unusual.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No. But that’s also not unusual.” In spite of the slanted smile he gave her, he couldn’t keep from feeling the too-familiar knot of worry in his chest. Visions of outpost after outpost strewn with bodies and overrun by mercs or geth arose in his mind; or worse, swarming with husks, mindless shells of the people they had once been, all recognizable features burned away…

“Downside of the N7 program, I guess,” Williams said with a wry little shrug. “Everything’s classified. But on the plus side, you know that there’s pretty much nothing that can take out an N7, right?” She spoke casually, but there was a sympathetic and encouraging look in her eyes that told Garv she’d seen right through him.

His smile became a bit more genuine. “That’s true.”  He remembered the last time he’d seen Akil cut loose with his biotics.  _Devastatingly effective_  was a bit of an understatement. Garv couldn’t keep from worrying about his brother, but the reminder of what he could do - and having someone there who understood how he felt - helped ground him a little, and he felt his tension begin to dissipate. “You said you had three sisters,” he said. “Want to tell me about ‘em?”

Williams’ expression warmed and brightened at the mention of her family, but she still asked, “Are you sure, Skipper? I don’t want to bore you…”

Garv waved her uncertainty away. “Nah, go ahead. I want to know. Plus it’ll keep me awake while I’m on watch.”  

Williams quirked a smile at him, clearly aware that the words  _keep me awake_ really meant  _keep me distracted_. She didn’t comment, though - just pushed off the wall and moved around behind him until she reached the pilot’s seat, sitting in it sideways so she could face him, letting her legs hang over the arm of the chair. “I’m the oldest,” she began. “My sisters are Abby, Lynn, and Sarah.”

“Hang on.” Garv held up a hand. “You sure you want to sit there? Joker’s gonna know if any of his settings are changed.”

“I won’t touch anything.” She grinned at him. “And I won’t tell if you won’t.”

He chuckled. “You’re a marine. You know the risks. Anyway, you were saying?”

“Yeah. Sisters. Like I said, Abby’s the next oldest after me. She’s kind of the weird one. All of us did some sort of self-defense training, but she picked swordfighting.”

Garv blinked. “Does she actually carry a sword around with her?”

“You’d be surprised at how many places will actually let you bring one inside,” Williams said with a smirk. “And you’d also be surprised at how quickly she can destroy you with it, dressing like she does. She likes wearing big skirts and corsets, but they don’t slow her down.”

“Speaking from experience again?”

She laughed at his wry grin, shaking her head. “Definitely not. I know better than to try and take her on. I’ve seen her in competitions, though. Now, Lynn - she’s good with a pistol but doesn’t really like it. But she’s really good at playing the cello. She started when she was eight…”

Garv turned a little so he could see Williams better. Even though he’d only known her a short time, he found himself willing to respond to her overtures of friendship - something that did not often come easily to him, in spite of his easygoing nature. He  _missed_ Akil, especially on the days when his memories brought the death of Tarik - their brother in spirit, if not in name - into painful relief.

But he was starting to realize that this ship and this crew was something special. He’d started a routine of making regular rounds to check in with everybody from day one. It wasn't something he'd done in the past, but he felt it was important now. His goal had been to make sure that his unlikely assortment of squad members felt comfortable on the ship, and to evaluate them to get an impression of how they’d all work together, but the unintended result of his efforts was that he was getting to know his squad members better than any crew he’d had before.  And he was also beginning to notice changes among the squad as a whole: tentative outreach despite the cultural divides between them.

It was something Garv had never experienced with any other command, but the change was a welcome one. He settled more comfortably in his chair, letting Williams’ stories fill his mind and push aside the lingering shadows. 


End file.
